Cocytus
by piewacket
Summary: Admiral James Norrington realizes that there is a price to pay for every action. This is a one shot written for the Fireplace challenge.


It was just good business, _Admiral_."

Admiral James Norrington watched as the effeminate and slightly repulsive pink lips formed the words, hardly believing what his ears were hearing. It was just good business? Good business to kill a man in cold blood? Good business to slaughter hundreds upon hundreds of innocent men, women and children?

Dear Lord, what he had done by aligning himself with this monster? He had not wanted to believe it when Elizabeth had spoken of her father's death. She had accused him of responsibility and he had denied it. But she was correct. Oh, he had not actually committed the murder. He had not even known of it for certain, until just this moment. Unfortunately, that did not excuse or absolve him.

Weatherby Swann's blood was on his hands as surely as if he himself had run the blade through the man. A man who had been like a father to him. A man who had supported and encouraged him. A man who had been willing to entrust his beloved daughter over to him.

Norrington felt a wave of despair wash over him. Lord Beckett's mouth was still moving, but he no longer heard the words. He was too lost in his own thoughts. Thoughts of the past. Thoughts of happier times. Thoughts of when the future had lain before him, bright and shining full of potential.

How had it all gone so terribly wrong? He wanted to blame it all on Sparrow. Yet, innate honesty forced him to admit his own choices and actions had inevitably led to this horrible point.

James could still hear Governor Swann's words ringing in his ears, "_Perhaps, on the rare occasion, pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy."_

For the past two years, he had used those words to justify every decision reached and every action taken. Securely wrapped in his own sense of superiority and belief that he, and he alone, knew the correct course of action.

An act of piracy? That was how he had talked himself into stealing the heart. He had known that it was wrong. He had known that delivering it to Beckett could not, would not, lead to anything but ill for any man who called himself a pirate. He had further compounded his sins by informing Beckett of the tales that he had heard aboard _The Pearl_. The tales concerning the Pirate Lords and Brethren Court that the pirates had shared with him when at last, contrary to all sense of reason, they had accepted him as one of their own. In the spirit of friendship, they had divulged things better kept secret, and he had repaid these offerings of comradeship in the very worst of ways. He had sold them to their enemy. Sold them for a meaningless title, a tarnished sword and an even more tarnished sense of honor.

But he had reconciled himself to it by telling himself that he was saving Elizabeth from Sparrow. Days upon days aboard _The Pearl_ watching Elizabeth flirt with Sparrow had taken their toll on him. Hours of seeing her bestow smiles upon the pirate, smiles that had rightfully belonged to him….or, at least, that was what he had told himself.

Now, he realized that those smiles belonged to neither him nor Sparrow. Those smiles belonged to William Turner and always had done. It had never mattered to Elizabeth how many honors he earned or how high he ranked. She had never cared for him as anything more than an older brother.

Yet, he had allowed his jealousy to convince him that it would take an act of piracy to combat a pirate. He had allowed himself to sink to the most common of levels by the basest of emotions. He was no better a man than Sparrow. Strike that, he was not even as good a man as Sparrow. Sparrow at least was honest about who and what he was, while he, Admiral James Norrington, had spent his life hiding behind a facade; a facade of propriety and honor.

Here he sat, in Beckett's cabin, stripped of all honor. Stripped of everything but the certain knowledge that he was not such a very good man.

As if rising from the depths of the ocean floor, Beckett's words slowly filtered back into his consciousness. "So you see there really is no choice. Miss Swann and her men will be hung at dawn. We will make an example of them. Their deaths will surely cause the surrender of the ragtag lot of pirates left roaming the seas. Any who continue to resist in this futile fashion, we'll leave to Jones and his crew. The war is at last won, and we are the victors."

Norrington watched as Beckett gulped the glass of port. He watched the other man's throat convulse to accommodate the greedy swallow, a tiny blue vein pulsing at the effort. His fingers longed to wrap themselves around the pale neck. Only years of military training allowed him to refrain from acting on this impulse. Beckett was correct; the war was over. The war that had been raging inside Admiral James Norrington had at last ended.

It had been a war that he was unaware of even fighting. A war for his very soul. How many times during the past months had he bitten his tongue and held his silence as atrocity after atrocity was committed? His very silence condemned him to the Ninth Circle of Hell as surely as any of his willful actions had done, and now the words were again pushing against his teeth, longing to burst forth and condemn this hideous little man as a monster. The words of regret had pressed their suit many times during the past weeks, but they would have to wait a while longer.

Right now, giving voice to them was a luxury that he could not allow himself. So, yet again, as he had for the past several months, he merely inclined his head in an unspoken message of acquiescence. The simple gesture was enough to satisfy Beckett, as Norrington had known it would. Lord Cutler Beckett walked though life supremely confident in his own rightness and infallibility. A trait that Norrington distastefully recognized as one they shared in common, or rather, one that they had shared until just few moments ago.

"I expect that you will handle all of the necessary arrangements, Norrington. At dawn these pirates will learn that there is a price to be paid for their actions. Every man and every deed has a price. You see, in the end everything is just one large business transaction, with each man determining the worth of his life. Goodnight, _Admiral_ Norrington. I shall see you and our esteemed guests at dawn."

Norrington nearly winced as Beckett once again emphasized the title for which he had sold his soul. It was a tactic that Beckett employed. A tactic intended to consistently remind James Norrington of whose control he had submitted to and why he had done so. But this time Beckett had overplayed his hand, though he did not yet know it.

Norrington listened as the door closed behind Lord Beckett. He savored the quiet and isolation in the cabin. Beckett was correct about one thing-every choice required a payment. Every decision to turn his back on those who had trusted him demanded a price to be paid. And he now knew the cost of his betrayals. The price had been determined and that price was his own life, for there was no way that he would be able to free Elizabeth and escape alive. Either the crew of _The Dutchman_ would kill him during the attempt or Beckett would give the orders for his hanging come the dawn. With a sigh, Admiral James Norrington drained the last of his sherry and stood to leave. There was a price to be paid, and he was willing and even eager to pay it. It would in no manner settle his debt, but it was a beginning.

At the door, he paused and turned. To the empty room, he at last gave voice to the words he had so often thought these last months. "If I had known it would end like this, I never would have told you."

* * *

A/N: Cocytus is a frozen lake in the ninth and lowest circle of Hell in Dante's _Inferno_. It is the circle reserved for betrayers, where they spend eternity frozen in the lake.

I must give a thank you to Magical Mistress Sarai. She helped me to clean up my spastic comma usage.


End file.
